Bibliotheca agilis: survival of the fittest in Libraryland

2012 lib@cam

Cambridge

12 January 2012

“Librarians” – An Endangered Species?

Association of Research Libraries

www.arl.org

Libraries of the Future

www.futurelibraries.info

RLUK Strategic Plan

• Redefining the research library model• Collaborating to reduce costs and improve quality• Shaping ethical and effective publishing• Promoting unique and distinctive collections• Modelling the library role in research data

management

http://www.rluk.ac.uk/

Redefining the research library model

• Physical collections are shrinking• Library as publisher• Manipulation of information resources

Collaborating to reduce costs and improve quality

• United Kingdom Research Reserve (UKRR)http://www.ukrr.ac.uk/

• Shared cataloguing (yet again!)

Shaping ethical and effective publishing

• Scholarly communications are changing

• Journal costs spiralling

• Monographs at risk

• But new publishing models emerging

Promoting unique and distinctive collections

• Collaborative digitisation

• Resource discovery

• Promoting access

The library’s role in research data management

• Uniquely complex network of metadata• Institutional, national and international initiatives

So in practical terms...

• Space

• Stuff

• Staff

The future

• Today’s research library model is obsolescentbut

• The research library of tomorrow can and will

support evolving models of

scholarly communications

not Doing things differentlyrather

Doing different things

Debby Shorley

Director of Library Services

Imperial College London

d.shorley@imperial.ac.uk

RLUK www.rluk.ac.uk

UKRR www.ukrr.ac.uk

ARL www.arl.org

LOTF www.futurelibraries.info

Imperial College Library www3.imperial.ac.uk/library